


You were my friend, and I was the same

by zinabug



Series: we're just a million miles from home [8]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon typical blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Medical Malpractice, Platonic Cuddling, mechs-typical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24720328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinabug/pseuds/zinabug
Summary: two very short stories, one in which Jonny hugs Nastya and one in which Nastya hugs Jonny and they're both sad in both.title from 3am by gregory alan isakov
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina
Series: we're just a million miles from home [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685929
Comments: 21
Kudos: 150





	You were my friend, and I was the same

“Shit- Nastya-“ 

She didn’t make it two steps before she collapsed, hair and coat and quicksilver puddling on the ground. 

Cursing under his breath, Jonny leaned down to try to help her up. She tried to push him away with a shanking, weak hand. 

“No- leave me.” she gasped. 

“Fuck no.” Jonny pulled her up more. She was so much taller than him, but he decided he didn’t give a fuck and dragged her fully upright, leaving her leaning heavily on him. 

She smiled weakly at him, wiping quicksilver from the corner of her mouth. “T-thank you.” 

Jonny looked away from her. “Don’t talk. Come on.” 

He started walking, blindly pulling her as far away from carmilla as he could. She slowly started to weaken, moving slower and her breathing becoming more ragged, but Jonny pushed on, taking more and more of her weight until the Aurora opened a door for them and they found themselves in the engine room. 

Nastya immediately collapsed, and Jonny has to drag her the rest of the way into the uncomfortably warm room. 

The Aurora shut the door behind them. Jonny sunk to the floor, pulling Nastya into his arms. Her breathing was slow and shallow. He closed his eyes and just held her. It was all he could do, hold her and hope beyond hope that her quick healing would save her. 

The hope was futile. She just kept bleeding and her breathing got shallower as he held onto her. 

He wasn’t even sure what the exact moment of her death was. 

All he knew was one minute she was alive, and one minute she wasn’t, and he wasn’t sure when it had happened. 

So he waited, in the stifiling heat of the engine room, holding the body of his sister. 

He’d done that more times then he could count. 

She woke up quietly, with a sudden gasping breath that quickly fell into rhythm. She stayed either asleep or unconscious, her wounds finally closed, and still bundled into his arms. 

* * *

Nastya wasn’t asleep when Jonny crept into the engine room and sat down cross legged next to her pile of blankets. He leaned his back against the wall and sighed. 

He had blood on his face and shirt, badly cleaned. It was mostly gone but she could still see it. Nastya squeezed her eyes shut. 

Jonny started humming very quietly, rocking back and forth slightly. He was trying to calm down, Nastya could tell. 

She rolled over. “Jonny?” 

He stopped. “Did I wake you up?”

She shook her head. “No- are you okay?”

Jonny laughed sharply. “No.” 

She nodded. “D’you want anything.” 

Jonny opened and closed his mouth a few times before shaking his head no in the way that meant  _ yes, I need comforting, but I’m a fool who doesn’t know how to express my emotions please just hug me.  _ Nastya had filled most of that explanation in herself, but she knew what it meant. 

She moved over. “Come here.” 

Jonny sighed and lay down next to her, stiffly and facing away. 

Nastya frowned at his back. She really had to do everything herself around here. 

She reached over and tapped his shoulder, waiting for his sharp nod before she wrapped her arms around him. It was best to not scare Jonny with an unexpected hug- he was likely to respond violently. 

Jonny stayed lying stiffly on his side, not reacting to the hug at all. 

Nastya remembered when she was like that, when touch was uncomfortable and hard to do, when Jonny did it freely. It had become more comfortable to her, but she still flinched away from light touches to her shoulder and arm, or a hug after she’d had a rough day- most days, really. 

Jonny sighed and relaxed slightly. “M’ sorry.” 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” Nastya responded. 

Jonny just sighed again and rolled over so he was facing her. “Yes I do. I always have things to apologize for-“ his voice cracked and he shook his head. 

“Jonny…” she squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s okay.”

The words were empty, and both of them knew it. She rolled away from him to face the wall, biting her lip and trying not to cry. She’d done enough of that for ten lifetimes. 

Suddenly, she felt Jonny’s familiar tap on her shoulder, their way of asking permission to hug the other. She nodded. 

Jonny may have been much shorter than her, but that didn’t stop him from being a good hugger. The two of them fell asleep like that, one of Jonny’s hands thrown over Nastya’s shoulder and her holding it tightly. 


End file.
